Marvel's Ultimate Heroes and Villains

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First screenshots and a Q&A about Marvel's Ultimate Alliance add-on pack.

By Douglass C. Perry

IGN caught up with Activision to get the lowdown on its upcoming Heroes and Villains add-on packs that complement last fall's release of the action-RPG, Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Today, we reveal the details on how the characters fit into the story, how they play, and how it was quite a challenge to keep a good balance with The Hulk in the game.

For those who missed out on the action, last week Activision announced it will sell three add-on packs, a Heroes pack containing The Hulk, Cyclops, Nightcrawler and Hawkeye, a Villains pack including Venom, Magneto Sabretooth, and Doctor Doom, and a combined pack of both. All three packs will be available on Xbox Live Marketplace, Tuesday, April 10. We spoke with Chris Palmisano, associate producer at Activision (Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, X-Men: The Official Game, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse), about the new add-on packs.

IGN: Thanks for adding new characters to Marvel Ultimate Alliance; it will be interesting to see The Hulk and Venom in action. So, why did you choose these particular characters -- The Hulk, Venom, Cyclops, Magneto, Nightcrawler, Hawkeye, Sabretooth, and Doctor Doom for the add-on pack? Seems like a good number of them were already in the previous X-Men action-RPGs (X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse).

Chris Palmisano: One of the big factors in choosing the new characters was based on feedback from our fan community site Marvelultimatealliance.com. Not to over-simplify it, but we basically surveyed our most vocal and active fans and then tried to narrow it down based on popularity. We also ran the list by Marvel for their feedback, but the VIP's won out for just about all of the eight spots we had for new characters.

The Incredible Hulk in action.

IGN: How difficult was it to create a working Hulk? Was it any more difficult than the Thing? Also, does The Hulk have a different character model and/or animations than the Thing? Please explain.

Chris Palmisano: The hardest part about creating a working Hulk was properly balancing the game. As fans probably know, he is one of the most powerful characters in the entire Marvel Universe in terms of brute force. In comparison to the Thing; Hulk is actually a lot taller and has a different posture, so the model is entirely different. In respect to the animation and super powers, Hulk has an element of ferocity to him compared to Thing that we really wanted to bring that out in the combat.

IGN: How much will the add-on packs cost?

Chris Palmisano: The downloadable content will be released in three packs actually. The Hero Pack and Villain Pack will each be 500 Microsoft points ($6.25) and the Combined Hero and Villain Pack will be 800 Microsoft points ($10). Heroes and Villains gamer pic packs will also be available for 80 Microsoft points each ($1).

IGN: Please give us examples of some of the cool, killer moves that the new characters can pull off? For example, what can Hulk, Venom, Hawkeye and Doctor Doom do?

Chris Palmisano: Well from that list of characters there are some really cool buffs and awesome moves. Hulk can almost double in size so normal characters only come up to his waist and Venom grows tendrils and giant claws. Moves-wise they all have cool abilities, though my favorite is Doom's "Doom Warp," which inflicts damage on everything around as it teleports him out of harm's way. Hawkeye also has a really visually exciting attack -- the "Ice Pick" -- where he jumps up in the air and blasts everything below him with his arrows.

Venom attackssssss!

IGN: Also, since Cyclops has shown up in both X-men games before Marvel Ultimate Alliance, how will he look and play differently?

Chris Palmisano: Cyclops's powers have all new visual effects and have also been completely overhauled from what fans have seen in previous games. As one of the most classic X-Men, this was a good opportunity to show what next-generation flare can do to his abilities. His attacks look amazing and also do some serious damage. I would recommend the "ricochet blast."

IGN: This is essentially the first game to show increased Achievements beyond 1,000 points on a standard retail Xbox 360 game, giving gamers 10 new Achievements for a total of 60 altogether (normally a standard retail game offers 1,000 achievements total and developers can split those up as they choose). Please tell us what kind of Achievements you worked into the game? What can we look forward to?

Chris Palmisano: The new Achievements really enabled us to highlight the new content and characters. There are eight Achievements awarded for unlocking all the costumes for each new character and there are four achievements for players who play through the new plot points created by the new characters. I would love to talk more about them since they are quite cool, but I don't want to give them away.

Cyclops (Optic Blast!!!) is back in action and fully re-done for the next generation.

IGN: Will we see any more add-ons to this game in the future? If so, what type?

Chris Palmisano: I can't confirm any details at this time.

IGN: Since you can play as Doctor Doom and The Hulk in the game now, does that change the story? For instance, Doctor Doom is a villain in the game, and Bruce Banner appears in a cutscene already. How have you changed, altered, or massaged the story to work in the new characters?

Chris Palmisano: We have recorded all sorts of new dialogue for the game and added to the script. I don't want to give away exactly how it works, but we hope players enjoy the small touches the development team added in to make the story work out.

IGN: What happens, for instance, if I have already started a game of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and I'm, say, 50% done. I then download the new content. Can I use the new characters in my already existing game? Or do I have to start a new one? If not, why not?

Chris Palmisano: In this scenario you will be able to play from your old save with the new characters. You could even host an online game where players who have not downloaded the new characters would be able to play your save and your new characters as well. (The other players have to get a special download for online games only that can be found on marketplace and is free.)

IGN: Will the new characters appear in the standard menu seamlessly? Or will there be an indicator flagging them as newly downloaded?

Chris Palmisano: The menu looks awesome with all the new characters in there. We are really starting to run out of room though.